Don't tell the kids, but there's a dirty little secret about crack: as with most other drugs, a lot of people use it without getting addicted. In their zeal to shield young people from the plague of drugs, the media and many drug educators have hyped the very real dangers of crack into a myth of instant and total addiction ... That doesn't mean it's safe to play with crack, or with most other drugs, legal or illegal. Addiction is a slippery slope. But what worries a growing number of drug experts is that the cry of wolf about instant addiction may backfire.

That's what crack cocaine did to Whitney Houston

Whitney Houston on drugs looks like a bag lady -- photographed at an Atlanta gas station at 4 a.m. one morning last month, looking disheveled and bizarre in pajama bottoms and a $50,000 fur coat.

Whitney Houston's sister-in-law, Tina Brown, has alleged that Houston is addicted to crack cocaine and is living in squalor. Brown claims that she knows this because she has used crack cocaine with Whitney. The British tabloid The Sun has reportedly received photographs of Whitney Houston, depicting drug paraphernalia including a crack pipe, rolling papers and cocaine-covered spoons in the singer's bathroom.

Tina Brown, sister to Whitney Houston's husband Bobby Brown, was quoted by The Sun as saying "The truth needs to come out. Whitney won't stay off the drugs. It's every single day. It's so ugly. Everyone is so scared she is going to overdose."

The addiction is reported to have become so bad, Houston will hallucinate. Sky Showbiz reports that "Tina claims drugs have made Whitney so paranoid that she sees demons everywhere and once made a hole in the bathroom wall as a spy hole." Elaboration came from a quote on The Sun from Tina, which says "She'll point to the floor and say, 'See that demon. I'm telling you somebody's messing with Bobby'. She always thinks it's something to do with Bobby. But it's her, hitting herself." The reports also claim that Whitney Houston is completely ignoring her own personal hygiene, is using copious amounts of crack cocaine at a time, and is using sex toys to pleasure herself. Houston is reported to have used an entire 8-ball (1/8 of an ounce) of crack at once, by emptying out a cigar, and filling it with the crack rock and marijuana. Habitual users will regularly break an 8-ball into several smaller pieces, using smaller doses at a time.

Reports also claim that Whitney Houston's mother, Cissy, had forced her to go to rehab clinics in March of 2004. It's reported that Whitney used crack in the car en route to the rehab session. Once at the clinic, she would do her best to dodge drug tests. The New York Daily News says she would tell workers at the clinic, "I'm not giving you no pee today. I don't have none right now." The New York Daily News also reports " Whitney allegedly loses her $6,000 set of false teeth when she's high and once appeared toothless, scaring the kids at her niece's school.". As well, " In 2004, a drug dealer called Bobby Brown and ordered him to remove the paranoid and out-of-control Whitney from his crack house. "Come get your wife. I'm sick of this b----," the dealer reportedly complained"

Other instances of how her addiction is ruining her life include The Sun's report of how "Whitney was also rushed to hospital in 2003 with blood gushing from her nose - and emerged with a bizarre bandage on it. A source said: 'Everyone wondered what happened to Whitney's nose.'" All of this is a drastic departure from the Whitney Houston the world has seen in the past. Houston started singing as a soloist in the junior gospel choir of the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey. She cut her first record deal with Arista in 1983. Her first album was released February 14th, 1985 and was self-titled. Songs like "You Give Good Love" and "Greatest Love of All" gave the album the strength to sell 24 million copies worldwide. Her follow-up album, entitled Whitney, launched on June 29th, 1987. #1 hits like "I Want to Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)", "Didn't We Almost Have it All" and "Where Do Broken Hearts Go?" help the album to sell 19 million copies. I'm Your Baby Tonight, her 1990 album, did fewer sales, only selling 12 million copies worldwide, but her next album would be spectacular.

Whitney Houston would take the lead role in the movie "The Bodyguard" along with Kevin Costner. The commercial success of the movie wouldn't compare to the soundtrack, which exclusively featured Whitney. Songs like "I'm Every Woman" and "I Have Nothing" would do alright, but, based on the massively popular "I Will Always Love You", the album would sell an unprecedented 37 million albums worldwide. Houston would do two more soundtracks, for the movies "Waiting to Exhale" and "The Preacher's Wife," combining for 17 million albums sold worldwide. "My Love Is Your Love" would manufacture 13 million more album sales. Her subsequent albums would not enjoy the same success as her earlier ones would.

It is rumored that the money she made from selling 100 million plus albums has most been squandered to her drug habit. Having apparently forgotten about her Diane Sawyer interview on ABC, where she stated "Crack is Whack!", concern for her well-being is the motivating factor behind the publicizing of her addiction. Tina Brown said, "I understand what she is going through. Addiction is a disease. Maybe this interview will help save her life."

Exactly! Cocaine is extremely habit-forming. It is potentially dangerous when indulged in to excess. If rats or monkeys are hooked up to an intravenous source of heroin, they will happily self-administer the drug indefinitely; but they still find time to sleep and eat.

If rats or monkeys can freely self-administer cocaine, however, they will do virtually nothing else. Captive animals continue to press their drug-delivery lever for as long as they are physically capable of doing so. Their fate is similar to an intracranially self-stimulating laboratory rodent. Within weeks, if not days, they will lose a substantial portion of their body weight - up to 40%. Within a month, they will be dead.

Cocaine and amphetamines concentrate in the central link of the reward circuit (the ventral tegmental area and the nucleus accumbens). These areas contain especially high concentrations of dopaminergic synapses, which are the preferred target of these drugs.

Cocaine's effects on other structures such as the caudate nucleus may explain certain secondary effects of this drug, such as increased stereotyped behaviours (nail biting, scratching, etc.)

In the United States, while amphetamines are most commonly used for treatment of attention-deficit disorders and narcolepsy, they are also approved as weight-loss medications in certain cases of obesity. Within the armed forces only, it is also frequently prescribed as an anti-fatigue pill for pilots and other individuals in situations requiring vigilance and alertness.

When Tom Cruise uttered those famous words in the Hollywood blockbuster, 'Top Gun': "I feel a need, a need for speed", he would not have known that his words had already been taken literally by the U.S. Air Force, in a way he could never have imagined. In the latest Jamie Doran documentary, 'the need for speed' exposes how the Pentagon has been issuing a concoction of mind-altering drugs to its soldiers and airmen, resulting in the deaths of allied forces, innocent civilians and, almost certainly, their own men.

Amphetamines, sedatives, anti-nerve agents, adrenaline and a whole variety of vaccines, including anthrax, make up a cocktail of chemicals banned by civilian authorities in the ordinary workplace, yet forced upon pilots flying multi-million dollar jets into combat and Special Forces soldiers operating behind enemy lines. In an extraordinary investigation, American military personnel speak for the first time to explain how they were used as guinea pigs in wars ranging from Panama, the Gulf, Bosnia, Afghanistan and right up until the recent conflict in Iraq. These are not dissidents, nor are they unpatriotic: they love their country and were ready to give their lives in its service. But they can no longer stand by and watch their comrades suffer as the Pentagon pushes more and more drugs onto the frontline.

"I guess I best remember it as almost paranoia. I had a dizziness; I wasnít falling over dizzy, but there was a little bit of a tumbling sensation going on. I felt paranoia where I was nervous and skittish about what was around me and what was happening. I wasnít in complete control." Steve Tait: Gulf War Hero "They made you ruthless, just utterly ruthless. I made decisions that I feel now I would not have made. I eliminated individuals that I considered to be a threat, that I would not normally have done." 'Mike': U.S. Special Forces: "A lot of times the fighter pilots say: 'speed is life, speed is life'; in this case, speed became death." Lt. Col Tom Heemstra: F-16 Squadron Cder "Many of the times, the sad part is that they canít tell if it was real or not. Thatís the part that is really frightening."

In this documentary, filmed at locations throughout the United States and Britain, we speak with a former White House 'Drugs Czar' who expresses grave concerns about the use of amphetamines in the military; we interview the man who, as Air Force Chief of Staff, banned the drugs as soon as he took over, only to see them re-introduced after his retirement; we follow the story of one pilot who sacrificed his career in pursuit of the truth; we feature the case of a 'ground' soldier who killed innocent civilians for reasons he cannot understand to this day. We explain how the 'voluntary' nature of dispensing these drugs makes legal nonsense and how the Pentagon may very well be breaking its own laws, to the detriment of its serving men and women; only to establish that, in reality, the U.S. military is a law unto itself. We discover that vital information on 'friendly fire' incidents, including the deaths of nine British soldiers in the Gulf War, has been withheld and we examine the true human costs of wars fought on drugs.

Elizabeth Wurtzel would seem like the kind of person who has it all. A talented writer, a graduate of Harvard, author of the bestsellers "Prozac Nation" and "female dog," she's had a lot of success though only in her mid-30s.

Elizabeth Wurtzel became addicted to Ritalin. She talks about it on her book called "More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction." She says she did not know Ritalin was addictive when she was prescribed it. Wurtzel was prescribed Ritalin in pill form, and then she started crushing the pills and inhaling -- snorting, and that's actually how she became addicted. Because she thought it was safe, she said well, if I take two pills when I'm supposed to take one, that's not so bad. And before you know it, it turns into eight pills, then 16, then eventually taking 40 a day. She was in the hospital for four months to get off it -- Ritalin was to her a huge addiction that eventually extended to other drugs also.

Elizabeth Wurtzel would seem like the kind of person who has it all. A talented writer, a graduate of Harvard, author of the bestsellers "Prozac Nation" and "female dog," she's had a lot of success though only in her mid-30s.

Elizabeth Wurtzel became addicted to Ritalin. She talks about it on her book called "More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction." She says she did not know Ritalin was addictive when she was prescribed it. Wurtzel was prescribed Ritalin in pill form, and then she started crushing the pills and inhaling -- snorting, and that's actually how she became addicted. Because she thought it was safe, she said well, if I take two pills when I'm supposed to take one, that's not so bad. And before you know it, it turns into eight pills, then 16, then eventually taking 40 a day. She was in the hospital for four months to get off it -- Ritalin was to her a huge addiction that eventually extended to other drugs also.

Elizabeth Wurtzel (born July 31, 1967 in New York City, New York, USA) is an American writer. Brought up Jewish, she attended Ramaz for high school. While an undergraduate at Harvard College, she wrote for "The Harvard Crimson" and received the 1986 Rolling Stone College Journalism Award. She has battled heroin abuse and addiction to cocaine and Ritalin. As of 2005, Wurtzel is currently attending Yale Law School.

Wurtzel is most known for publishing her groundbreaking memoir, "Prozac Nation," at the age of 26. The book chronicles her battle with depression while a college undergraduate. The film adaptation of "Prozac Nation," starring Christina Ricci, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival September 8, 2001 but never had a U.S. theatrical release. It was telecast on the Starz! network during March, 2005 and was released on DVD in the summer of 2005. In her second book, "female dog," she wrote that feminist writing had become "dry" and she wanted to make it "juicy" again. She focused on what was praiseworthy about "bad girls" such as Amy Fisher. She also published a second autobiographic volume with the title "More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction" (2001), which is centered on drug addiction. She has also written for The New Yorker and New York Magazine.

9/11 remarks

Controversy erupted over comments Wurtzel, who lived near the World Trade Center in New York, made about the September 11, 2001 attacks, during an interview with Jan Wong about the "Prozac Nation" sequel, "More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction." She was quoted in a February 16, 2002, article by Wong titled, "That's enough about me, now, what do you think of me?", for The Globe and Mail in Toronto:

Quote

My main thought was: What a pain in the ass... I had not the slightest emotional reaction. I thought, this is a really strange art project... It was a most amazing sight in terms of sheer elegance. It fell like water. It just slid, like a turtleneck going over someone's head... It was just beautiful. You can't tell people this. I'm talking to you because you're Canadian... I just felt like everyone was overreacting. People were going on about it. That part really annoyed me... I cried about all the animals left there in the neighbourhood... I think I have some kind of emotional block. I think I should join some support group for people who were there... You know what was really funny? After the fact, like, all these different writers were writing these things about what it was like, and nobody bothered to call me.